


Game On

by Buttons15



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8061010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttons15/pseuds/Buttons15
Summary: From college to overwatch veteran and beyond, Angela Ziegler's trajectory as a closeted nerd and a gamer.





	1. League

Sixteen year old Angela Ziegler sat in front of her desk, legs crossed on top of the chair, and twiddled her toes inside her socks. She absently flipped one out of two thousand pages of the book on her table, and reflected upon the fact that if _Lehningher’s Principles of Biochemistry_ was this thick, she could only imagine what an advanced biochemistry book would look like.

_“The flux through the glycolytic pathway must be adjusted in response to conditions both inside and outside the cell.”_

_God, this is so unearthly boring._

Leaning back against her seat, she stretched her arms upwards, grimacing at the pain that shot through her stiff back muscles. It had been a long day of a long week and her brain wasn’t really cooperating with her studies. Sighing, she forced her eyes back to the paper.

“The rate of conversion of glucose into pyruvate is regulated to meet two major cellular needs,” She read out loud, trying to keep her focus. “The production of ATP, generated by the degradation of glucose, blah blah blah fatty acids.”

Inwardly groaning, she rested her forehead against the page, eyes closed, rationalizing that perhaps if she stood on that position for long enough, knowledge would flow from the book and into her brain by osmosis. Her attempt was unsuccessful, and after a full five minutes, she straightened back up and glared at the metabolic pathway map stuck on her wall.

 _More like diabolical pathway map,_ she thought sourly, abruptly slamming the book shut. Pushing the wall with her feet, she rolled the chair backwards, until it bumped on her bed and she hopped into it and under the covers, giving up on the studies altogether.

She turned her laptop on, opened a tab with youtube and stared at the bar for a second.

“chopin prelude op 28 no 15”, she typed in and hit play.

She hit open a news website and skimmed through the headlines for a moment, none in particular catching her attention. Increasingly aggravated, she logged into a couple social networks and scrolled through them for a couple minutes.

“moonlight sonata third movement,” she switched once the previous song was done playing.

_Yeah that’s some good vibes you got there, Angela._

She closed her eyes and took one long, deep breath, feeling anguish well up inside her chest. She rubbed her face with both open palms, the tenseness in her muscles evident. She focused on the movement of air in and out of her lungs, counting from _eins_ _bis zehn_ and back.

_God they were dead and chopped I can’t –_

And now the images were coming, branded at the back of her eyes, of arms and legs and body parts on metallic trays, the strong smell of formaldehyde burning her nostrils, the skin on her hands trapped inside rubber gloves and sticky with sweat. The sleeves of her lab coat folded up to the elbow, holding a scalpel with one hand and tweezers with the other, pulling apart the skin from the fat and the fat from the muscle and the muscle from the bone –

 _Sixteen._ She clenched her hands into fists. _I am sixteen. I am sixteen and I am absolutely not ready –_

How the skin looked dry and the muscles looked washed out from the conservation process, giving every body a mummified aspect. A particularly horrific, vertical cut of the skull came to her mind, the inner nose and mouth visible in one side, opaque eyes spit in half on the other, tongue lolling out, trachea and larynx hanging.

“mozart requiem lacrimosa”

She asked herself what an adult would do – what her parents would do. The thought hurt and it didn’t help; she found herself growing more distraught. The next best question, of course, was how her classmates dealt with it, and she didn’t need to look very hard to find that answer – with alcohol, of course. Alcohol, loud music, sex, things that could drown out the deeply disturbing things they were all going through.

 _Perhaps it’s just me though,_ she reflected. _Perhaps they aren’t suffering much at all with it. Perhaps I am just far too young and too green and too sensitive. God, I need something to take my mind off this._

She was lonely, there was no denying that. She had always been a people person, one that loved to bask in human warmth and share laughter and hugs and kind words. But that had been before – _before_. She found herself suddenly out of place when she fell into grief for her parents, and then out of place when she buried herself in books to forget it, out of place when her academic performance far bested her peers, and now she found herself out of place because she was a child in a class of men and women.

The forced solitude did her harm, though she was too proud to admit it to herself.

“things to do when you are alone at home and a minor” Google search.

_God, I’m pathetic._

Anguish, squeezing at her chest and stealing the breath out of her lungs. She questioned her choices, questioned if she was cut out for this at all. She was quickly running out of patience with herself.

“good free games” she abruptly typed in, following a couple links to a download page.

_League of Legends. Huh. Looks promising._

Her room had optic fiber – the download took less than five minutes to be done, and then she was staring at a game screen, confused but content with the challenge of figuring out the interface. She skipped the tutorial – hands on was the best way to learn after all – and jumped straight into a match, guiding her character through the map, hitting the buttons at random to figure out what they did.

On the first minute, she died to a tower.

On the fifth minute, she died to a minion.

On the eighth minute, she died to a tower again.

On the twelfth minute, a teammate profusely cursed her for invading his solo lane.

On the eighteenth minute, she died to a mob in the jungle.

On the twenty-third minute, she was getting the hang of it, but she still died to a bot-controlled enemy champion.

On the thirty-seventh minute, she killed her first enemy, and she pumped her fist in the air with the thrill, grinning.

On the forty-eight minute, they were taking the base and she died to a tower again. She cursed as she waited for the respawn, promising herself to take a hero with a bigger health bar and more regen for the next game.

The match ended at the fifty-second minute with their defeat, her face twisted in a frown. There were still many things she didn’t quite understand – inhibitors, super minions, item building – but she was deeply competitive and the thought of losing really made her tick. Straightening her back, she switched the mouse to her left hand and gave the tutorial page a quick read, just enough to answer her major questions. The rest, she was ready to figure out by herself – almost ready.

“brahms hungarian dance no 5” she turned on, because the right soundtrack was everything.

Satisfied, Angela Ziegler switched back to the game window and grinning, hit play.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some notes about this:  
> \- Gamer Angela gives me life;  
> \- Originally I meant to make it all into a single huge story, but shorter tidbits are more realistic with my schedule;  
> \- Eventual Phamercy of course because I can't help myself, but that's way later on - this one gamer has a loooong way to go.  
> \- Left handed Angela;  
> \- Classical music nerd Angela;  
> \- I actually have no idea how med school works in Zurich; I know for a fact that in the US there's that USMLE business and medicine is a grad course rather than an undergrad one (?). And while I don't mind doing research, the whole pre med-undergrad-grad business really gives me a headache so Angela is going to have med school like I have med school: straight out from high school 6+ years of ~~pain, suffering and torment~~ studies;  
>  \- Overwatch chronology is kind of a mess; theoretically, Angela joined at age seventeen. In this story she's having her first year at sixteen and if I follow the chronology, then she'd be recruited, at best, at the end of her second year. That means she was definitely not head of surgery when she joined, because she didn't even _have_ surgery in her course on first place. Point being, bear with my broken timeline here, because either I do that or Angela got into college at age eleven - and prodigious as she might be, no parent in their right minds would allow an eleven year old to dissect bodies.


	2. Harvey's

Angela rested her face on her hand, half lidded eyes trying and failing to focus on the teacher. She had to make a humongous effort to keep herself awake, and even so, she occasionally found herself drooling.

 _I don’t want to memorize every muscle’s insertion,_ her brain whined as the teacher spat out names like a machine gun. A blue pen sat on her desk, next to a half-filled notebook. She’d given up on her notes about an hour into the lesson, taking involuntary naps every dozen minutes. She’d been sleeping four hours a night for the last two weeks.

_I need a coffee._

She checked the clock: still another excruciating forty-two minutes to go. Grabbing the pen, she drew a circle, then a couple lines, and after a while, a doodle began to emerge. Grinning, she let the drawing merge into her notes, until she had something that was half game character, half anatomical content. And then – god bless – the teacher reached the last slide and let them go.

She packed her things into her bag, leaving the notebook for last, but when she reached out to grab it, she found someone’s hand holding it open. A young-looking man stood next to her desk. She’d seen him before, in some of her classes. He was one of those who went to college only to sign the attendance list, and was usually either asleep or absent. She half judged, half envied that kind of attitude.

“That’s Amumu,” he said, a lighthearted smirk on his face. “From _League._ Cool. Way cool. You play?”

She pushed her glasses up her nose with a thumb. “Sometimes. In between test weeks, when I get time to –” she was interrupted by a yawn. “ – to sleep,” she finished, squeezing her eyes as she stretched.

He chuckled. “You’re taking things too hard. Maths in medicine works a bit different.”

“Does it?” she queried, standing up.

“Yeah,” he put his hands inside the pockets of his hoody. “Six equals ten. That’s how I roll with the grades.”

She rolled her eyes and threw her backpack on. “Wish I was that carefree.”

He shrugged, and the two began strolling their way to the door. “You can be. It’s all in here,” he tapped his head with his index finger. “Do the Elsa.”

“Do the what now?”

He paused, opened his arms and motioned up and down with his wrists. “Let it go, let it go,” he sung, out of pitch, yanking a smirk out of Angela. “I am one with the MRI –”

_A Disney classic._

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it goes.” They resumed walking.

His eyes twinkled. “Whatever, doc. Gotta run – I have immuno in twenty and I want to grab a bite before.”

“That’s a second term subject,” she pointed out, stopping by the stairs. “You flunked anatomy?”

He put both his hands behind his head, giving her a goofy grin. “And embryo, but not cytology or biochem. Want a tip? Drop Lehnigher’s and switch to Harvey's – it has a lot less _boring_ and a lot more pictures.”

“Absolutely. You seem like the perfect person to take academic advice from,” the blonde teased.

“Hey, we have ten years to graduate, y’know? Whoever said you have to do it in six years was a bit crazy in the head.”  He took a glimpse at his clock and extended his hand. “Name’s Nikolas by the way – hit me up at _League_ sometime. It would be an honor to be the Lux to your Amumu.”

She extended her hand to shake his, but he didn’t let go, instead fishing a pen from his pocket. Twisting so the back of her hand faced up, he scribbled something on her skin – _Nik42_42._

“I’ll make sure to add you the next time I reach REM sleep,” she promised.

“Anxiously on the wait,” he replied, then broke into a run, headed to the snack bar. And then, abruptly, he turned back, opened his arms and sung, “I wanna do psychiatry anywaaaay!”

_The friends I make._

She facepalmed, shaking her head.

* * *

 

_“Gluconeogenesis begins in the mitochondria with the formation of oxaloacetate through carboxylation of pyruvate –”_

_What-fucking-ever._

She slammed the book shut in an impulse, and flipping her laptop open, clicked her browser.

“harvey biochemistry pdf download” Google search.

 _Illustrated Biochemistry,_ the search engine returned her, and she died a little on the inside at her academic all-time low. She scrolled through the textbook and calculated that Lehninger’s two hundred pages on glucose degradation had turned to a stunning twenty-three pages in Harvey’s, and with tons of _pictures_ to boot.

 _Whatever,_ she repeated to herself, moving the file to her college folder and opening up her game. _I wanna be a surgeon anyway._

 

* * *

**Bonus:**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- It's not a bad quality image, it's _artistically sloppy_  
>  \- I can officially say "greater trochanter" in four different languages now  
> \- "Greater trochanter", "Trochanter Major", "Trocânter maior", "GROßER ROLLHÜGEL" why, german, why  
> \- Introducing Nikolas, the first of Angela's college friends and the support of their League of Legends team. The other three are (spoilers!):  
> \- Juan, from whom she learns Spanish; dreams of being an emergencist and plays as their midlaner.  
> \- Karl, socialist as his namesake, political activist who wants to work as a researcher for neglected diseases. Plays as their marksman.  
> \- Emma, the jewish pediatrician wannabe who plays as their jungler.


	3. Monsters

 

Angela was slouched in the couch, a controller in hands, feet up on the table. Eyes glued to the screen, she maneuvered a car around a virtual track, brow furrowed in concentration. She didn’t even blink when she heard the door open, barely sparing her entering classmate a glimpse. Holding a bowl of popcorn with one hand, a bottle of soda with the other, the man stumbled their way.

“Yo, Karl, that’s a new shirt you got there,” Nikolas pointed out from his position, sitting on the rug.

Holding the accelerator button and driving her racecar out of a turn, she turned her head for a split second to check the other’s clothes out. He was wearing a blue t-shirt with a face stamped on it, though whose it was, she couldn’t quite recognize. She turned back to the screen.

“That’s not a Guevara,” she stated absently.

“It’s a Zapata,” Juan clarified, from her left, without tearing his eyes from the pile of papers he was currently reading. “I hope you’re planning on the socialismification the snacks,” he teased.

“And of the knowledge,” Nikolas added, throwing the book he had been reading – _is that ‘Illustrated Pharmacology’?” –_ on top of the table and reaching for the food instead. “Obscure diseases are your subject; your time to shine!”

“It’s _socialization,_ ” Karl plopped down on the couch between her and Juan. “And Angela probably knows it as much as I do.”

She felt an elbow poking her rib. “Gaming,” she snapped, fingers moving from button to button at frantic speeds as the lap neared its end.

There was shared laughter, and she felt her cheeks burn slightly, letting her lips curl into a grin. A car hit the back of her yellow Porsche, making it spin on the track. Cursing, she pushed the brakes and tried to correct course with the joystick, sticking the tip of her tongue out in concentration.

“American trypanosomiasis,” Nikolas declared. “Do you have this where you’re from, Juan?”

“ _La enfermedad de Chagas_ , yes,” the other agreed, bunching his papers together and leaning forward to pay attention. “Not at all uncommon, actually.”

“Fair enough,” the first shrugged. “What are its antibiotics?”

 _Benznidazole and Nifurtimox,_ she thought, but didn’t say, focused on her car.

“Uhhh…”

“Beznidazole and Nifurtimox,” Karl replied between gulps of soda.

“Nifurti-what now?” Nikolas queried. He picked up the popcorn bow, grabbed and approached her. “Say ‘Aaah’, Speedy Racer.”

She opened her mouth, allowing herself to be fed, twisting her body out of the way when her classmate partially blocked the vision.

“Nifurtimox,” The other repeated. “Get back here with the food.”

“Sounds like a dragon straight out of Skyrim,” he placed the dish on the table and slid it back to where it had been.

“Hhnng,” Angela protested, still chewing. The others turned their heads to face her, and she swallowed her food and hit pause. “Dragons from Skyrim have names with three syllables. _Al-du-in_. _Paar-thur-nax. Dur-neh-viir_. Nee-fur-tee-mox is a syllable too long to be dragon.”

There was one tense moment of silence right before the four broke into a heated discussion.

“They can’t be four syllables long,” Karl gesticulated with his hands, exasperated. “They’re three syllables long because their names are a fusion of three words in dragon. _Od-ah-viing._ Their names are Shouts, that’s the whole point.”

“ _Miraak_ is only two dovah-words long,” Nikolas countered. “ _Mir-aak._ ”

“Miraak was a priest, though,” Juan pointed out.

“Priests don’t follow the same rules,” Angela agreed. “ _Krosis_ was only one word, but _Zah-krii-sos_ was three.”

“ _Hevnoraak_ is three syllables but only two words,” Nick insisted. “It’s _Hevnor-aak_. Nifurtimox could be the same – Nifur-tee-mox _._ ”

“Besides, _Miraak_ could do four-word shouts,” Juan added, then cleared his throat, dramatically raised an open palm and recited, “ _Relonikiv, ziil los dii du!_ ”

“The three-word thing was way more of a gameplay restraint than a lore one,” Nikolas asserted. “Nifurtimox can definitely be a named dragon.”

She chose that moment to hit play again on her game, struggling for a split second to pick up the pace – which costed her two positions in the race. Sitting up straight, she squinted at the screen, concentrating.

“I vote priest,” Karl voiced.

“Dragon,” Juan made his choice. “Minerva’s vote is yours, Ange. Either we solve this right now, or you make it into a tie and we’ll forever hold onto this dilemma.”

The ghost of a smile crossed her lips.  “The power. The responsibility.”

 “No! Not another dilemma!” Nikolas pleaded. “I will never sleep again if I have another bread-and-butter pericardium issue in my life!”

“It does _not_ look like bread and butter,” Karl muttered. “It is nothing alike –”

“Does too!” Angela snapped.

“Beyond the point!” Juan interrupted. “Cast your vote, Ziegler!”

“You can’t win,” Nikolas argued. “Don’t curse us with a tie! Have mercy! Give us this small victory, I beg you!” He gave her the puppy eyes. “I fed you!”

She would have rolled her eyes, if she didn’t need them to keep track of the game. Words flashed ‘final lap’ on the screen, and she was silent for a moment, turning all her attention to the decisive moment.

“Fine,” she spoke finally, once her Porsche’s lead was secure. “Nifurtimox gets to be a dragon.”

“Yes!!” Nikolas pumped his fist on the air, grinning wide. “I knew your heart was not cold enough to inflict such suffering. You’re too nice to be a surgeon, Ange.”

Throwing the controller aside, she reached out for the popcorn bowl then crossed her legs on top of the sofa, bringing it to her lap.  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, picking out the last of the remaining food. “I just overwrote all of your high scores with my name.”

The collective laughter that exploded on the room gave Angela life.

  

* * *

 

 

“You’re too nice to be a surgeon, Ange,” Emma whispered, rubbing circles on her back.  She hid her face in her hands, took a couple deep breaths, counted to ten.

“Be the change you want in the world, y’know?” she scoffed, feeling dampness on her cheeks. “God, what a prick.” She made as if to stand, but the other pushed her back down the chair, shaking her head. “I need to get back there and close ‘im up,” she protested. “I can’t just let a patient open on the surgery table –”

“Don’t be so dramatic. He’s not open, it’s just a tiny incision, and you already did most of the job anyway. Juan and Nikolas can handle the stitches.”

“Blood makes Nikolas faint,” she pointed out, receiving a light slap on the nape in response. “Ow!”

“We’ve got your back, Ziegler, have a little faith,” the brunette stated, firmer this time. “And get off the scrubs, we’re having a break.”

“Doctor Asshole is going to eat us alive if he catches us,” she objected, but Emma was already dragging her off by the arm.

“He never stays past five. By now, he’s probably already stamping the attendance list.” She gave up on any kind of resistance, letting herself be led to the changing room. They took out their surgical caps and coats, tossing them into the respective bins. They picked up their backpacks and Emma grabbed her phone from inside it, giving it a check.

“Aaand he’s gone,” the other announced as they made their way to the hospital’s snack bar. “Karl just saw him drive off the parking lot.”

Angela brushed a thumb against her own cheek, suddenly anguished. “Don’t tell Karl he slapped me,” she pleaded. “He’ll go nuts.”

“As well as he should,” the brunette snapped. “You could go to the police for this, Ange. Teacher or not, no one has the right to hit someone else.”

They paused together and took seats opposite to one another. Rummaging through her bag, Angela produced a sandwich wrapped up in foil paper. Emma did the same with a package of cookies.

“You shouldn’t just drop it,” the other insisted.

“I’m a scholarship student, a minor, and an orphan.” The blonde ran her hands through her hair, nervous, and sighed. “I know you mean well, but it would be my word against his and I don’t have any proof.” She halted, felt herself tear up again, grit her teeth. “I can’t afford the trouble on my academic record. Silence is cowardly and selfish, but I just have too much to lose, Emma.”

Her friend reached out from across the table, grabbed her hand and gave it a hard squeeze. “It’s not cowardly, it’s sensible, and I respect that.”

She turned her hand against her classmate’s, moving so that their fingers interlaced. For a couple seconds, she stood still, staring absently at the point of contact.

“It’s…” the words seemed to be stuck down her throat, and she swallowed dry. Emma’s thumb moved against the side of her hand, comforting, and Angela took a deep breath. “…hard. Being so… alone in the world.”

She looked up, met her friend’s eyes despite her own teary ones, because she had to make sure her message was understood. “This… is all I have. Just the promise of a profession and…this –” letting go of the other, she lifted her palms in the air. “A pair of hands.” She closed them into fists. “And a bunch of silly dreams.”

Emma stood, leaned forward on the table and firmly tapped her sternum with an index finger. “And the kindest heart I’ve ever seen,” she smiled. “And us. You have us.”

“The best friends I could ask for,” Angela replied, making her friend’s grin widen. She rummaged through her backpack again, until she found the gift they had pitched in together to buy for her birthday – a portable Nintendo. The brunette’s eyes glinted in recognition.

“Dragonite is such a cheap Pokémon,” she smirked, booting the console on. Emma walked over to her side and she moved to make space for her on the bench. “He’s a dragon but he’s also got thunder and that completely overpowers him against the ice types.”

“Which gen are you playing?” her friend took a peek on her game.

“Still on Fire Red,” she replied, skipping through the start screens. “Too many tests, too little time, and I can’t let my _League_ rank drop now, can I?”

“Don’t you dare shaming the team,” Emma agreed. “Dragons are kinda overpowered on the first gens, but later on the Fairy type comes in and counterbalances them –”

“Yo, Emma, Ange!”

The two turned together and saw the boys approaching, Nikolas looking a couple shades too pale, Juan – still in scrubs – talking fast while Karl listened, his face turned into a scowl. She felt her stomach drop at the thought of having to retell the entire _situation_ , but when she met Nik’s gaze, he lifted his fingers in a quick _‘okay’_ gesture.

It did very little to soothe her, but she appreciated his attempt nonetheless.

“Yellow Porsche,” Karl stated when they got closer, sliding to a seat next to her. “Y’know? Big car. The ‘overcompensating’ kind of ride.” He bumped his shoulders against hers. “Give me a semester or two,” he paused. “Once he’s waaaay out of our curriculums – oh boy, I am _so_ gonna key it.”

She couldn’t hold back a smirk. “Fight not the demons –”

Karl cut her off with a wave. “Hold your nihilism and your Nietzsche, I’m already a commie anyway – we eat babies ‘n shit.”

“Squirtle,” Nikolas, poking his head over her shoulder to take a look at her Nintendo. “Who the fuck picks squirtle! We didn’t give you a DS so you could pick squirtle!”

“I picked Squirtle,” Emma, mildly miffed.

“What the hell, Charmander is so rad,” Juan, hopping over to the opposite bench.

“Arcanine has better stats as a fire Pokémon,” Angela justified, “Charizard _and_ Arcanine on a team make a fire-fire waste of slot, and Blastoise holds off pretty well with its high defense.”

“Well that doesn’t account for the _rad_ factor now, does it?” Nikolas grinned.

“How is Arcanine not _totally cool_ –” she snapped back.

“I picked Bulbasaur,” Karl confessed.

For a moment, the five were completely still.

“…Somehow, this is more disturbing than you reportedly eating children.”

 _We’ve got your back, Ziegler,_ the words echoed in her mind when their laughter rung out the room, earning them some mean looks from the passing nurses, and then again when they exchanged their goodbyes, and again when she put her pajamas on and hopped in bed, holding her Nintendo, for a couple minutes of gaming before sleep.

Guiding her character around, she barged into people’s homes in search of TMs and HMs, looking into waste bins and bookcases, sleeping in NPCs’ beds and engaging in all sorts of behavior only acceptable in a society where it was ethically okay to have wildlife fighting as a sport. Standing in front of a random character, blocking its way, she pushed “A”.

_"There are still words that not everyone can describe...The words are 'love' and 'joy,”_

Angela paused. Flipping the console, she eyed its back, where her friends had autographed their names. She ran her fingers over Emma’s round and delicate handwriting, over Nikolas’ scrawl, over Karl’s scribble – in red, of course – over Juan’s signature, punctuated by a happy emoticon.

Above all, she held on to the feeling of _belonging_ it gave her.

 _I’m getting life advice from Pokémon,_ she mused, yet she had a smile on her face all along.

* * *

 

**Bonus:**  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- To be perfectly fair, I don't very much like the previous chapter or this one; I might edit them out or edit them together when I'm done...someday. Maybe. This story is not nearly as well planned as my previous ones, it's mostly random blurbs, and I can't help but feel it shows a lot.
> 
> \- Basically a chapter of Angela and college friends nerding out, featuring the dark side of medicine. "Would a teacher really slap a student" might be the question one would ask, and to that all l have to say is that we have a culture of abuse and repression behind a demanding profession, and it is at the same time very covered up and very deeply rooted. 
> 
> I'd like to think Angela's strong repulsion for violence goes a bit beyond losing her parents to war; perhaps her principles got really burned in her soul from seeing too much aggression from those whom one would least expect it from.
> 
> \- I always ask myself what I want my stories to be truly about, and I suppose this one revolves mostly around finding oneself and growing up; We'll have larger time hops in the next few chapters but I feel the first college years are very crucial and so they deserved a little bit more of attention.


	4. Inhibitor

She woke up with one bitch of a headache, her mouth dry, deep rings under her eyes and little to no memory of whatever had happened the night before. Analyzing the feeling of having her first hangover ever, Angela Ziegler decided it wasn’t all too different from what she felt after one rough test week.

She picked up her pillow and covered her eyes with it, groaning. Her clothes stank of alcohol and she clumsily yanked her shirt off, still slightly uncoordinated.

 _Dehydration and alcohol intoxication_ , her brain helpfully diagnosed, making her frown.

_How about you give me last-night memories instead?_

She pushed herself to a sitting position, white specks of light dancing on her vision as she rose. She pressed a hand to her forehead, wincing. She remembered going out with her classmates to celebrate her twentieth birthday. She remembered the bar, the music, the dancing, the food – some of which seemed to be half digested and stuck to her pants – and the drinks. Oh, the drinks.

She remembered thinking _‘This is the last glass’_.

 _“Mutterficker.”_ She stood with some difficulty, feeling the walls for the light switch – bad idea. “ _Aaaaah, Hurensohn – Himmel, Arsch, und Zwirn!_ ”

Shielding her eyes with one arm, she stumbled, each ray of light feeling like a knife inside her skull. She kicked off her pants, disgusting with vomit and god knew what else, and threw them inside a plastic bag. She’d send them to a laundry - or set them on fire. She could decide which one later.

_Where’s my phone –_

She stepped on it, tripping, holding down on her dresser for balance. Letting out a stream of foul words that would make a sailor blush, she retrieved it from the floor and swiped the screen on, only to see at least twenty three messages waiting for her. From the main screen, she scanned each of the chat windows.

There weren’t any messages from Juan, but he had been crazy drunk before she even lost her memory, so she figured he’d probably still be comatose asleep.

“We need to talk,”  From Nikolas, two hours before.

“Zig, you alive?” From Karl, a little over twenty minutes.

“TEXT ME FIRST THING”  From Emma.

That seemed important. She clicked that window open.

“yo,” she typed in a greeting.

 _“_ you hooked up with nik last night _”_

Angela let the phone drop. “ _Verdammte Scheiße!_ ”  

Scrambling to pick it back up, she struggled to unlock the screen, fingers missing the pattern three times. She punched the wall when the smartphone locked up for sixty seconds after too many failed attempts, pacing around the room.

Grabbing a glass, she filled it with water from the tap and swallowed it down with one long gulp, then took a deep breath and carefully drew a line across the screen, unlocking it.

“how did it happen?” she texted back.

“alcohol”

Gritting her teeth, she sat down on her bedside, ignoring the sharp pain the phone backlight gave her.

“I figured that part out,” she replied.

Emma had the nerve to send her a laughing emoticon. “sure you wanna know the details? you were going a little bit nuts with the men and nik set out to try and calm you down…”

Angela winced. “never mind, spare me.” She bit her bottom lip. “should I be looking for morning-after pills right now?”

“ _nein_ ,” Emma replied, and the blonde let out a sigh of relief. “just some smooches. he handed you to me when you got too impossible and I took you home.”

She facepalmed, feeling her cheeks burn. “why didn’t you stop me before, _verdammt_? ”

“busy trying to stop Juan from choking in his own vomit,” Emma justified, and Angela took a deep breath. “I hope it wasn’t your first kiss,” the other suddenly texted, “would suck to not remember it.”

“wasn’t my first,” the blonde snapped, irked. “or my second. or my third. rest assured.”

“ooh. looks like you have some untold stories.”

Angela let herself fall down in bed, before furiously texting back, _“ Du kannst mich mal!”_

Emma replied with more laughing smileys. “you’re a catch, Zig, but no thanks, I’m into dudes.”

_I’m not ready to deal with this shit right now._

She tossed the phone to the side, losing it between the bed covers, and walked over to her table and her laptop instead. Pulling a drawer open, she grabbed a box of Advil and swallowed two at a time. She could swear her liver did a motion of protest, but she promptly ignored it, opening her games folder instead. Right before opening _League,_ though, she hesitated.

She had her friends on her game buddy list, of course. She let her head hit her keyboard, frustrated. If she turned it on and they were online, she’d have to _deal with things_ , which was precisely what she wanted to avoid by gaming. Sure she could just make another account, but for that she’d have to make another email first, and then play deeply unsatisfying matches with newbies.

 _I just want to play,_ she whimpered, clicking her browser open. She dodged social networks as well, rolling over a news website. _Come on, Ziegler, young prodigy, med school genius, there’s got to be a way you can play a MOBA without – oh._

“Dota 2” she googled, and the combined problem avoidance and gamer heresy of it made the new icon on her desktop all the sweeter.

* * *

 

“We’ve got your back, Zig!” Nikolas’ voice sounded on her headphones.

“Understood,” she answered, fingers flying over the keyboard, changing her character’s course.

She led them into the middle lane, the teams clashing. Her Amumu held the blunt of the damage, Nikolas’ Lux shielding her from behind. Admittedly, their choices of hero had never been the most sensible ones, and their opponents’ Darius-Vladmir-Morgana combo was kicking their butts. But as Karen from Pokémon once said, _“Truly skilled Trainers should try to win with the Pokémon they love best.”_

 Angela and her friends merely applied that concept to the choosing of _League_ heroes, too.

 _It’s a wonder we even got to the finals,_ she mused, mashing the attack buttons.

“ _Scheize,_ ” she cursed in synch with Nikolas when his Lux was taken down.  Cornered, she had a split second to hit her ultimate and take down their top and midlaner, and then she was dealt a fatal blow. Gritting her teeth, she waited for what would obviously follow.

“ _Enemy_ _triple kill,_ ” the female voice announced. “ _Enemy quadra kill! An enemy is godlike! Enemy penta kill! Aced!_ ” 

Angela resisted the urge to hit her head on the desk, counting the respawn seconds. Switching anxiously between the item screens, she saw from the corner of her eyes when Nik got on the move again, and then she was back at the base and clicking furiously at the lane, as if it could make her champion move faster.

 _They aren’t at our base,_ she realized as Amumu slogged his way through the arena. _And if they’re not attacking that can only mean –_

“Baron,” she spoke, her voice echoing in the mic.

“I’ll get ‘em,” Nikolas replied.

“What?!” Karl protested. “Wait for us, you can’t –”

She clicked harder, accepting from the bottom of her heart that she’d have to get a new mouse after this one.

“Blind ulting!” The other interrupted, and then, to her astonishment –

 _“Triple kill!”_  the announcer went, and she could swear even the robot sounded surprised. On top of her screen, Lux’s face popped up, together with the message ‘The red team has slain Baron Nashor’.

 _You’ve got to be kidding me,_ she blinked, dumbfolded, as she watched her gold and experience meters shoot up. And then she burst out laughing. Her teammates joined in, runes swirling around their characters, superpowered minions on their tails.

“We’re going to win this shit,” Emma snorted, downright hysterical, as they swept their ways into the enemy base. At that point into the match, the Baron boost was a game-changer. She met two enemy champions, the first ones to respawn, but Lux supported her from the back and she took them down swiftly.  

“ _Your team has destroyed an inhibitor._ ”

“I can’t believe it,” Juan said, and then added, “Recalling!”

“Got you covered,” Karl barked back.

Nikolas shielded a blow from her side, and taking advantage of the ability reset time, she chased after the opponent, taking him down.

 _“Triple kill!”_ the voice declared. “ _An enemy has been slain! The enemy nexus is at 75% health!_ ”

“Nice,” she whispered, and Karl gave her a thumbs up.

Super minions started rolling in, a now full-health Juan leading them into the enemy base. She frowned, feeling sweat roll of her temple.

“ _The enemy nexus is at 50% health!_ ”

She moved Amumu around the core, enemies on her tail, her health dropping fast as the Baron boost worn out.  In their voice chat, Emma cursed when her champion blinked out, taking an opponent with her.

“ _The enemy nexus is at 25% health!_ ”

“We’ve got to back up,” Nikolas screeched, his Lux running past her tank.

“The fuck we will,” she snarled, completely blind now that she had metaphorically tasted blood. “I need five seconds.”

“We don’t have that!”  Juan yelped.

_“An ally has been slain!”_

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck –_

_“Enemy double kill!”_  

“Oh my god oh my god ohmygod – ” Emma babbled.

“Get ‘em, Zig! Get em!” Karl cheered, his hero running way too slow.

Lux flashed out of existence and now the opponent champions were crowding at her and her health points were quickly dropping down to 230 – 113 – 91 – 33 – 7 –

_“Victory!”_

“YES!”  She yelled, standing up, slamming her palms on the table. “Yes! _Küss meinen Arsch!_ ”

“ _Pendejos, la puta madre –_ ”

“We suck,” Emma laughed. “We suck, and we won.”

She raised both her palms in the air for a high ten with the other girl, and then with Juan and Karl and Nikolas, until they were all standing and cheering and jumping around, cursing and laughing.  The responsible teacher came into the room to fetch them a couple minutes later, looking thoroughly bored. They didn’t mind.

The other finalist team, the one from IT, met them in the sloppy podium, clearly meant for individual sports. They squeezed together on the taller of the steps anyway, with Nikolas holding her up in the air, Juan carrying Emma on his shoulders and Karl ducked between the other two boys’ legs. Their opponents weren’t nearly as enthusiastic, particularly when Angela told them to go make her a sandwich.

There wasn’t much of a public, particularly on their side, but those who watched the match on screen applauded them as they received their awards.

“One, two, three – MED SCHOOL!” the five yelled together.

Each of them later received a copy of the photograph taken, matching red sweatshirts and fake gold medals hanging on their necks, smiles so bright they might as well have won the Olympics.

Angela made a point of having hers printed and framed for many years to come.

* * *

 

She was only two semesters away from graduating when news of the war broke out. It took two more months for the effects of it actually reach them, but when they did, they swept her over like a tidal wave. She was working twelve hour shifts at the surgery section, and then twenty-four, and then seventy-two.  When she wasn’t up and operating, she was surfing _Pubmed_ for scientific papers, piling them up on her research project on nanobots.

Karl was the first one to leave. He smiled all the way through their goodbye, promising to write every week, declaring his time in the army would prepare him for _la revolución_ which was bound to come soon. He was older than her, but on that day, what she saw on his eyes was very much a scared child. Only two weeks later, her preceptor passed away, and on emergency measures, she was promoted to head of surgery.

Juan left soon afterwards, back to his country when news of the death of his mother reached them. Angela knew what he was going through and she felt for him deeply. She called on the first night he was away, Emma called on the second, Nikolas called on the third, and so they insisted for a month, until they finally accepted that if he was well, he didn’t want to talk to them. Angela would only hear of him many years afterward.

The letters from Karl stopped coming five months after his deployment. For the following weeks, she told herself no news were good news, and when the bad news finally came, she slept only four hours, and then only three the next day, until she’d worked herself to exhaustion and passed out in the middle of a surgery.

 It were Nikolas and Emma who dragged her away after that, and they sat together on his house and played Mario Kart for hours – because _League_ was just too painful – until they fell asleep huddled together in the couch. Her own sobs woke her up on that night, and she hugged them close and begged them not to leave her.  _“Pinky promise,”_ Nik replied, and somehow they managed to make a pinky promise of three.

 As it turned out, it was her who left them in the end. Only three days later, an organization named Overwatch contacted her with deep interest on her work and her research. She talked to the two about it, and they held her hands when she made the choice to accept, because it was her best shot at life, and because they wouldn’t let her miss the chance to make her dreams come true.

They held hands too through their graduation, hastened weeks too soon, a somber formality of handing over the diplomas. She left on that very night – Overwatch demanded her immediate services. Only twelve hours later, she had her own lab and her own medical room and she was already working her heart out. Sometimes, late at night, she’d flick _League_ open, but no one was ever online and suddenly it wasn’t fun anymore.

 _A prodigy,_ they called her at first, when the soldier death rate plummeted. _A genius,_ they called her only a bit later, when her breakthrough pushed science centuries forward. _An angel,_ they called her at last, when she first yanked someone back from the cold claws of death.

But Angela Ziegler didn’t really feel like a prodigy, or a genius. She didn’t feel like an angel, either.

She only felt very much alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feels, bro


End file.
